Every four years, the world is captivated by the Olympic Games. Relatively little-known athletes in sports like track & field, swimming, diving and gymnastics are thrust to the forefront of popular culture, where they perform in prime time hoping to turn years of dedication and hard work into a gold medal. Few know the pressure of what goes on inside the ropes.
Cal State San Marcos head cross country and track & field coach Steve Scott is one of the most decorated distance runners in United States history. The first American to break the 3:50 mile mark, Scott set American records in the outdoor mile (3:47.69, 1982), the indoor mile (3:51.80, 1981) and the indoor 2,000 meters (4:58.6, 1981). His outdoor mile record stood for over 25 years and he ran more sub-four minute miles (136) than anyone else in history.
Scott's Olympic story is a little bit different. He won the Olympic Trials in 1980, but was forced to miss the Moscow Games due to President Jimmy Carter's decision to boycott the competition. After setting various American records between 1981 and 1984, Scott took 10th at the '84 Los Angeles Games before finishing fifth at the '88 Seoul Games.
For the top American distance runner of his time, the Olympic experience seems to have left more to be desired. However, as Scott reflects in this in-depth CSUSMcougars.com feature, his experience running the 1500m in '84 and '88 has given him valuable perspective in teaching and motivating his CSUSM teams.
Every fourth year, it seems like the world catches Olympic fever. Why is the world so captivated by the Olympic Games?
I think it's because it's every four years. You have an NBA championship, a Super Bowl, World Series; every other sport has a championship every year. This is every four. The other thing is it was originally an amateur event with people who made major sacrifices in order to be able to continue to train. Since the Dream Team, the Olympics have gone pro. You've got pro tennis players, pro soccer players, basketball players; track athletes and swimmers are now professionals as well making huge amounts of money. I think originally the idea of the games being amateur athletes is what really got interest going in the Olympics.
And now, with TV and marketing, you can't pick up a magazine, listen to the radio or watch television without an ad for the Olympics. That's from the materialistic point of view. From the pure standpoint of the fan, I think they love the stories. That's what really gets people captivated by the Olympics. Somebody that's overcome or someone who wasn't supposed to win that came up and won. In a nutshell, I think that's really what the Olympics are all about.
A stellar collegiate runner while at UC Irvine 1974-78, Scott's Olympic dream started eight years before he would step to the line in Los Angeles in 1984.
My Olympic story started in 1976. I was a sophomore at Irvine and I had just gotten second at the NCAA's Division I level in the 1500 meters. I then went to the USA championships and placed in the top five or six. Those were all the top runners in the country. So I made it to the finals of that, which was essentially the same field as the Trials would be. I did have a qualifying standard time (a time that is required to qualify for Olympic Trials competition). They take the top 36 times, but only 33 people had made the standard. So they needed to fill three more spots. So, my coach at the time went in front of the committee and argued for me. So I was the 36th runner they accepted to the trials.
I made it through the heats, made it through the semifinals, into the finals and was seventh in the finals. So that was my first exposure to the trials and possibly the Games. They take three, I was seventh. So it was pretty good.
Four years later, Scott had graduated from UCI and was the No. 1 ranked miler in the United States. However, with his career on an upswing, politics derailed Scott's first chance to compete in the Olympic Games. President Carter boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games due to tense relations with the Soviet Union.
In 1980, I think I was ranked third or fourth in the world. So the boycott really sucked. It was going to be my first experience. It was going to be out of the country so I wouldn't have all this focus and attention on me. It's over in the USSR, so there wasn't going to be the deluge of media there was like in '84. It would have been low-key. It would have been pretty low pressure since I wasn't No. 1 in the world. That's why I feel like it would have been a good opportunity for me.
The boycott I felt was the wrong thing to do. That was the only thing we did to boycott the Soviet Union- not send an Olympic team and try to get other countries to do the same thing. We didn't boycott our grain, our computers, our oil, our intelligence, none of those things. The worst thing was because the Democrats controlled the press, if, as an athlete, you came out and said anything against the boycott or Carter, you were basically labeled a Communist because they took the view of “well, you're supporting the USSR, communism and invading Afghanistan.” So you really couldn't say anything.
When some Olympians said that they're going to go anyway, the government said that they're not going to give visas, and if you do go you can lose your citizenship. They were coming down really, really heavy on these poor amateur athletes. So, it was really difficult to win the trials, make the Olympic Team and have nowhere to go. We had to listen to it and see the results in the paper, knowing that we could have been there competing. And, you know, [the boycott] had nothing to do with national pride. I mean that's what they wanted to make it out as. It had nothing to do with that. It was politics. That was all it was.
Between 1980 and '84 Scott broke the American mile record twice and finished second at the inaugural 1983 IAAF World Championships. By the Los Angeles Games, Scott had become a household name in track & field circles. With the games an hour away from his college campus, all eyes were on Scott when he stepped into the LA Coliseum.
This is where it hurt me not having Olympic experience in '80. Your first time doing anything, whether it be a state meet, a national NCAA Division II championship, a championship for USA Track & Field – usually your first time around you're going to take your lumps. There are not too many people their first time there they do really well. It usually takes a couple of times. So not having that experience of competing in '80 and realizing it's just another meet and treating it as such really hurt me. Don't change everything because it's the Olympics. It's another race and do things that have worked in the past. Well, I didn't get that memo.
So in '84 I felt like I had to change everything, and I did. Usually after the Trials and Championships I go over to Europe and race to get myself into shape. I have fun, tour around, enjoy myself. The training stops the middle of June. Instead, what I ended up doing, was keeping the training going through the Trials. So I wasn't sharp and I got second. So basically, I over-trained before I got to the games because I didn't stop and do what I normally did in the middle of June: rest and race, rest and race, and travel. I changed the way I trained, the way that I traveled and my racing schedule.
I didn't even go to the opening ceremonies. I thought, well you're sitting out there all day, you're in the sun, it's going to exhaust you, you're going to be tired, you've got to drive in and drive back. I didn't stay in the Olympic Village. I mean, I did everything to add pressure on myself because I was telling myself this was the end-all, be-all of all of human existence. If I didn't do well, the world was going to end, basically. I was totally not doing what had been working for me. I just drove up from home the day before my first race. By then, I was just a basket case. I put so much pressure on myself to perform that nothing good was going to happen. So my recollection of the '84 Olympics is the heats, the semi's, my finals and the closing ceremonies. And that's my whole memory of the Olympics. Not going to any other events, not seeing the village, not enjoying what they're meant to be.
In terms of my performance, I even changed my race tactics. You never find me in the lead until the last lap or 600 of the 1500m – and I took the lead after the first lap. So, we get through the first lap and there was no reason for me to take the lead, the pace was pretty decent. So I take the lead and push really hard for the next 600 and I'm thinking I'm going to have a 20-yard lead. I look over my shoulder and the whole field is sitting right on top of me. I had pushed it pretty hard. At the time it was an Olympic record the winner had got, and I was the pace runner that day. So, I changed my tactics – I changed everything – instead of sticking with what works. So… yah, that was the '84 Olympic experience.
Blessed with Olympic experience he had not had before the '84 Olympics, Scott approached the '88 Games from a completely different standpoint. Finally, eight years after originally qualifying, Scott lived the Olympic dream for the first time.
In Seoul, I had a completely different philosophy. I went back to what has worked in the past. I did my training to a certain point, then my racing in Europe. I came home, went over with the team and stayed in Chiba, Japan. I stayed with the team and then flew over to Seoul for the opening ceremonies and they actually flew us back because we didn't start racing for a week or so. Then I stayed in the village, traded pins, and went to other events. I still got my training in and was focused, but I was enjoying myself, doing crazy stuff, and having a good time.
My family was there and they were at the Olympic Family Village. I stayed with them the nights before my heats and my semi's. The only mistake I made was the night before the finals I decided to go back to the village to stay the night there. I didn't want to have to go from where my family was staying ,to the Olympic Village, then get on a bus to go to the stadium. I didn't want to risk getting there on my own.
All my roommates were gone. The next day was the last day of the Olympics and then the closing ceremonies the following day. So, they're all out on the town partying and having a good time. I'm sitting there all by myself and all I could do was think about the race. When my family was there, I didn't think about it because my son was there, my wife, my mom and dad, so they kept me grounded and relaxed.
I was very confident because I got second in my heats and first in my semifinals. I felt brilliant, like I was going to do really well. But that night, all I could do was think about the race. Instead of totally relaxing, taking my mind off of it and just being in a nice, quiet place, I just kept thinking about the race over and over and over again: seeing myself winning the race, getting on the victory stand, The Star Spangled Banner being played, the medal being placed around my neck. I didn't mentally relax – when you're visualizing properly, you're using energy. When you're in an Olympic Final, you need every ounce of energy you can get. There could have been a little fatigue, since I was 32, so I needed every ounce of energy I had when it came time to race.
My racing tactic was perfect. I was right where I needed to be. With 250 meters to go, when normally that's when I make my move – I'm going to get up on the leader's shoulder and then blast by him on the home stretch – I knew I was in trouble. From that point forward, it was just about surviving and trying to hold position and not totally blow up. I knew I didn't have that snap. I think it was not being able to sleep the night before and using so much of the energy I needed for the race visualizing it the night before. The winner had never won a race prior to that and had never won a race after that.
The good thing is, I experienced the Olympics in '88. Regardless of how I did in the race, I came back with a lot of memories from '88. They're good memories. Fifth place is not the top three, but it's decent.
Scott and his teammates almost enjoyed the opening ceremonies too much. A couple of pairs of Mickey Mouse ears and a not-too-impressed South Korean Olympic Committee nearly cost American athletes the perks of being an Olympian.
All the other teams, well they entered the stadium in order all lined up. They all looked alike. The U.S. team kind of goes in a big mass, there's no organization to it. We had been to Disneyworld in Japan so we wore these Mickey Mouse ears in the opening ceremonies. The Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee took a real offense to the opening ceremonies. And publicly, they specifically said that people were not organized and some people were even wearing Mickey Mouse ears.
The Olympic Committee provided perks – so if you were a basketball player you could get tickets to a gymnastics event or a diving event – but the Seoul organizers weren't providing us extra tickets because of how we had marched in.
So, we had to send representatives to formally apologize for the way that we had marched into the opening ceremonies in order to get these perks back. They were punishing us for the way we entered.
Funny thing is, I was one of the representatives that went into the room to apologize; they didn't know that I was the one wearing the Mickey Mouse ears. We went to the meeting in the gear we marched in the opening ceremonies in. I'm being a part of this representative group and I feel in my pocket and the Mickey Mouse ears are still there!
Every Olympics there seems to be a character that turns into the face of the games. Jesse Owens in 1936, Mark Spitz in '72, Nadia Comaneci in '76, the Dream Team in '92, Kerri Strug and Michael Johnson in '96. The list is lengthy. However, for Scott, the ones who stick out are the people who will live in Olympic infamy rather than legend.
Unfortunately, my period was plagued by drugs. That's the sad part. I mean, Ben Johnson, Marion Jones, Flo Jo – who never tested positive but you look at her and say, well… -there's people from the Olympics that test positive after the games. So really, it tarnished the image of the Olympics. They came out with more testing to catch people who were cheating.
Unfortunately, the thing that I remember most is all the Olympic cheaters. How they were caught and how they tarnished the whole image of the Olympics. Unfortunately, that's the people I think of. I hate it because I was clean and doing everything the right way. And, you have this group that is cheating and they get caught, and now they tarnish everybody. Not just themselves, the whole Olympic movement. Now people think, “You made the Olympics? You must be on drugs.” It pisses ya' off really. It's like, why can't you go in there and be clean like everybody else?
With intense media spotlight, the influx of politics on the games, dopers and the role of sponsors the Olympics has become a completely different product in Scott's view.
The Olympics now are a world-wide media marketing multi-billion industry. I mean, the first Olympics that was profitable was 1984. Previous to that, there was never an Olympics that made money. So it showed that the Olympics can make money.
So, they opened it up to professionals. The ticket prices have gone up ten-fold. It's still a great event, but you can't get through three minutes without ten minutes of commercials. The advertising, the selling of the official soft drink of the Olympics, the official clothing of the Olympics, the official prophylactic of the Olympics - everything is the official Olympic item. They're making tons of money, look at the television contract. It's huge. And now people realize it's a huge money maker.
Despite how the Olympic Games have evolved over the past 28 years, Scott believes the camaraderie shared with his teammates is the most memorable and worth-while experience he had at the games.
The camaraderie with the other people that were in the Olympics is what I remember and cherish most. I'd hate to say it because it's not like it at all, but it's like if you go to war with somebody. If you're in the military and you're going to war and you're with these other people who are also going with you, you can really only relate it to them because they're going through the same thing. So, your Olympic teammates, they're going the same thing – the same pressure, the same feelings, the same fears – and so you really kind of develop this close bond with them. It's really only during this certain time period where you get close to people and get to know them well. Then, the Olympics are over and everyone goes their own way and that's it.
It's depressing when it's over. There's this huge build-up and then you get to the final and it's all gone. There's not anyone who wants to talk to you. Nobody wants anything from you, there are no appearances. You go back to relative obscurity unless you win. If you win, now's the time you get an agent and start signing endorsement deals, commercial deals and whatnot. If you're not the winner, then you go back to obscurity. You actually feel embarrassment that you didn't do better, that you didn't represent your country better. You're answering questions like, “So what happened to you, why didn't you win?”
So how does Scott reconcile his Olympic performances compared with a Hall of Fame career? (Scott was inducted into the USA Track & Field Hall of Fame in 2002.)
The Olympics is your one opportunity every four years to shine. It's hard not to get caught up in the pressure of it. You go into it in relative obscurity for four years and then all of a sudden, if you're one of the favorites, you're getting contacted almost daily by radio, newspapers, sponsors. NBC wants to do the up-close-and-personal where they're sitting in your home for three days filming everything that you do. Every local channel wants to interview you because they're going to put it on their network. It's tough, especially if you're a favorite. There's a lot of pressure put on you. You really can't describe the Olympics unless you've been a part of it.
If you didn't win, you're nothing. I expected to win. When I went to the Games both in '84 and '88 I expected to win and I expected to win for my country as a representative. And, unfortunately, if you don't win, you're nothing. Even second place isn't good enough. And they let you know it. If you're not first, you're nothing. In this country, you've got to be a gold medalist. Now days, you've even got to have a story behind you. A normal gold medal isn't good enough, because there's so many of them. You look at how many gold medals France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Finland – they don't win that many. There's only a few and the ones who win are national heroes. And even their second and third place people are very well-known and appreciated, but not here.
The American public, the majority that is, will ask me “How'd you do in the Olympics?” I'll say I got 10th and fifth and their answer will be like, “Oh that's too bad.” Unfortunately that's it. It doesn't matter that I got a silver medal in the World Championships in arguably a better field than what was there in '84. But that doesn't matter. It's the Olympics. For track and swimming, those types of amateur sports, that's all that matters.
I don't want to be a taken the wrong way. It's a tremendous honor to be a part of the Olympics and represent your country. It's definitely the highlight of my life; an honor, a privilege and it was a great time. At the same point, there are just such high expectations from the press and the public that takes away from it a little bit. You're fighting this feeling of making the Olympic Team and being Olympian, but at the end of the day, I didn't win. It's hard to walk away from it with only positive feelings. It's hard. Again, maybe it's just me because I expected to win and it's just my own personal thing I go through. Maybe I'm being hard on myself.
Undoubtedly, Scott's Olympic experience and years as an elite runner have helped a number of CSUSM track & field and cross country runners perform to their full potential. The women's cross country team has won three straight NAIA National Championships and 15 track & field athletes were named All-America last season alone.
I use my own experiences to help them. I try to keep them in a positive frame of mind. For these kids that I'm training, the NAIA Championship is their Olympics. And they look at it the same way that I did. My biggest thing is I'm always trying to get them to relax and not take it so seriously. I mean I actually tell them there are a billion people in China that don't even know you ran. You're running it for you. No one else cares. They probably don't even know you're running. The only one that cares is you.
So, give yourself a break. Just go knowing that you're going to do the best that you can and give yourself permission to say “I'm going to be happy with my performance no matter what I do.” So my biggest thing is trying to keep them in the right mental frame of mind. Keep them relaxed, not let them think too much. And, know at the end of the day they're running for themselves. They're not running for me. If you come in last, am I going to hate you? No. You're my athlete and I love you regardless. The only one you have to please is yourself, so be kind to yourself.
I think I had to go through the experiences at the Olympics to be able to relay that message to athletes. Shoot, I wish I had had someone telling me that in '84 and '88.
